The only answer anyone can give it depends. For something like the celestial tournament you know exactly how fast you need to be to be faster than your opponent. If that is what you want to use it for then any breed that is faster is good enough and one that is only just faster but has more Power or Hps is probably better. For PVP you never know what your opponent will be so you can't know what you need. Some people aim for as fast as possible or plan for fast enough to be faster than most other pets.

Well, the s/s has 325 speed when under 50% health, which is quite nice, but the p/p has 341 power all the time--even better, imo. The extra 325 health on a h/h is nothing to sneeze at, though. I believe my order of preference would be p/p, s/s, h/h, but all of them are viable for pve. If you don't want to burn a stone on something you already have as a rare, I think the h/h should suit you for pve purposes. If you plan on using it for pvp, I would suggest holding out for a p/p, or maybe a s/s.

Tuatha wrote:Well, the s/s has 325 speed when under 50% health, which is quite nice, but the p/p has 341 power all the time--even better, imo. The extra 325 health on a h/h is nothing to sneeze at, though. I believe my order of preference would be p/p, s/s, h/h, but all of them are viable for pve. If you don't want to burn a stone on something you already have as a rare, I think the h/h should suit you for pve purposes. If you plan on using it for pvp, I would suggest holding out for a p/p, or maybe a s/s.

While I'm just PVEing at the moment, once I get more pets up to 25 Ill probably start PVPing.

So you'd say it's worth using a stone on the P/P I caught today then ? I have 2 available and wouldn't mind using one if you think it would be worth it.

Shankmcgank wrote:Based on that, what should I do ? I know fliers have the +speed racial, and I was under the impression that in almost all cases if a flyer has an S/S breed that I should try and capture it.

Well, the speed racial is dropped when the pet goes below 50% health with flyers so maybe think about it in this way when you choose: s/s might put you above the normal speed if you go below 50% (enough to save yourself against other, normal pets.) An h/h gives the extra health so that you may not lose the racial quite so fast. With a p/p, you're looking at beating down your opponent faster.

Shankmcgank wrote:While I'm just PVEing at the moment, once I get more pets up to 25 Ill probably start PVPing.

So you'd say it's worth using a stone on the P/P I caught today then ? I have 2 available and wouldn't mind using one if you think it would be worth it.

If you're not pvping right now, I wouldn't waste the stone. I also would probably rarely if ever use Wildhammer in pvp, so no, I definitely don't advocate using the stone. (I know some people like them. It's a preference thing.)

If you decide you want to pvp with it, then make that decision. Don't use the stone until it's needed (especially flying stones, they're hard to come by and you'll need a lot of them to get all your fliers rare).

*edit: That pet also comes in p/s, sometimes a worthwhile alternative to p/p and s/s. I use my p/s Crow over my s/s Crow because he's fast enough below 50% and hits noticeably harder. Again, it's mostly about preference.

Also, if you know what speed your pet needs to be for the tournament you can base your decision on that. If neither the h/h or the p/p are fast enough but the p/s or s/s is, then don't stone anything less than that.

Shankmcgank wrote:Is there a list of the "must have rare" fliers or pets in general ?

No such thing. Sure, there's the top 20 rated battle pets on this site, but that's just a conglomeration of opinions. The fact of the matter is that I personally wouldn't go into a pvp battle with half those pets. Gilnean Raven? Why, when I have a better breed Crow available (also on the list). Rags, Murkalot, and Pandaren Monk? I don't own them and likely never will, and none of them would make top 20 for me anyway, given their weaknesses (slow, predictable, and susceptible to counters in the current meta (undead are pretty common, making aquatic not so unusual as well)). Terrible Turnip? Awesome on my wild cage team, but pvp? Never. I could go on, but really it's all just my opinion. Someone will say, but hey, I DO have a s/s Raven, so why not use it? Its very existence will awe my opponent and possibly win the mental match before the game even begins. Murkalot is a fierce pet, no doubt, but not in my top 20--but someone else loves RI. I don't own it, all I know is if I'm running one of my top tier teams I can beat the predictability of a Murkalot well more than 50% of the time. And someone else may say a Turnip's tidal wave and sons of root destroys the meta game on their bg. Not mine.

"Must Have" doesn't exist. Once you get into pvp you'll find setups you want to try--either to counter what you just went against, or to mimic it. From that maybe you'll develop your own Must Have list. But there isn't a generic list of pets to be competitive in pvp. Once your #1 Unborn Val'kyr loses handily to an Emperor Crab or Rascal-Bot team, you'll see that there is no easy answer the Must Have question.

Don't get me wrong. Many of the pets in the top 20 are extremely useful in pvp, but I would say that list is a cross between pve and pvp, and half are pve, while the other half (less than half, for me) are more pvp orientated.

Fwiw, I would include the Unborn Val'kyr, Crow, Kun-Lai Runt, and Magical Crawdad in my top 20 list. Maybe the Scourged Whelpling and Darkmoon Tonk too.*

Back to the original question, if you're using this guide, it looks like the Wildhammer was simply used to flock against Xu-Fu, which any bird with 297+ base speed and flock should be able to do. Hey, I use that strategy and only have an uncommon level 19 Wildhammer. I don't use it, but I have a couple level 25 rare flyers with flock that I use instead. Substitutions are always acceptable, as long as they can mimic the intent of the strategy--in this case, flyers (less damage and therefore less healing from Feed) with a double damage attack. And the guide itself states, "There are many different options you can use for the Flying pets". Assuming that's the guide you're using.

Definitely go with stoning the P/P Wildhammer; its a great pet (and I use it against the Pandaren Water Spirit tamer).

AFAIK, there are only 3 birds (and one moth) that have a P/P breed: The Wildhammer Gryphon Hatchling and Imperial Eagle Chick both have H/P/S of 1319/341/260 while the P/P Dragonbone Hatchling has less power at 1481/325/244. So, if you want a bird that can really crank out some damage and kill something fast, like for a tamer fight, then your options are extremely limited. I usually prefer the P/P Wildhammer to the P/P Eagle because I'd rather have the predictable and reliable damage of Peck over the more random Slicing Wind.

The Wildhammer is unique in terms of no other pet having those 6 exact abilities in those slots, but for a given 3 ability configuration in a different breed, there are other birds that could probably do the same job for you. Take for example the S/S Wildhammer at 1319/276/325. Birds like an S/S Tickbird (1400/260/325), P/S White Tickbird (1319/273/322), P/S Polly (1237/289/322) and S/S Chicken or Szechuan Chicken (1400/260/325).

The only thing that can substitute for P/P Wildhammer Gryphon is the P/P Imp Eagle, and even then, like I said, I usually like the Gryphon more. So unless you already have a rare P/P Imp Eagle, stoning the P/P Gryphon seems like a no-brainer. Especially since, in my opinion, the Gryphons are annoying to farm.

Some more thoughts on this. My views are pve-centric since I don't pvp. But even pvp'ers need to pve to level pets, right? I should mention somewhere that I usually don't get excited by H/H breeds. I'd much rather have P/P and/or S/S versions.

Shankmcgank wrote:I know fliers have the +speed racial, and I was under the impression that in almost all cases if a flyer has an S/S breed that I should try and capture it.

My instinct is to go the opposite way and devalue speed on flyers to some degree. If your S/S breed is going to be always be faster than your opponent, even when the racial bonus has fallen off, then you're getting no benefit from the racial - its basically a wasted resource. I'd rather maximize power and try to kill as fast as possible and whatever mileage I get out of the racial is bonus.

In pve, especially tamer fights, you know what the enemy is using and so you're bringing in the flyer to kill a particular opponent or two. If dropping from faster to slower if/when the racial falls off turns out to have major ramifications for that fight, I find I'm more likely to fix the problem by going in a different direction (a non-flyer) or working in something like adrenaline rush than to turn to a faster flyer.

Shankmcgank wrote:Should I battle-stone as use the P/P, use the H/H or hold out for an S/S ? I looked at petsearch and the wildhammer pet doesn't rank in the top 20 for speed, power or health.

The Wildhammer may not rank in the top 20 for power in terms of all pets, but it is tied for first in terms of having the most power of any flier.

There are a lot of pets out there, most come in multiple breeds, many pets share identical ability sets with other pets and some share both ability sets as well as the same stat distributions for their breeds. So ... which ones do you want? I think its valuable to identify and collect the outliers.

For example, there's at least 15 different frogs/toads that have the same ability set and they come in all kinds of breeds. For the P/P, S/S and H/H breeds, however, there is only one example of each: Yellow-Bellied Bullfrog (1562/309/244), Leopard Tree Frog (1481/244/325) and Huge Toad (1887/244/244).

The P/P Wildhammer Gryphon is an outlier among flyers which makes it, not necessarily a "must have", but a valuable part of a collection.

Pets used in the 5.4 Guide to Master Tamer (levelling) + Beasts of Fable guide can make a stronger claim to any kind of must have status. If you're not familiar with this guide you should definitely become familiar with it. There is no better way to level up pets and get upgrade stones than by grinding the pandaren tamers using two max level pets to carry and level the third. Get the pets used for those strats leveled up first and then you'll have a machine that can power level up any pets you want quickly.

The P/P Wildhammer Gryphon is a very strong pet to use against the Flowing Water Spirit and should kill both Marely and Tiptoe. So, that's another reason for wanting one in your collection.

Shankmcgank wrote:Is there a list of the "must have rare" fliers or pets in general ?

No, not really. If you're into the PVE aspect of it and do the Panda dailies daily, you'll get a whole bunch of stones. I've never really hunted for a rare myself. I think I can count on the fingers of two hands the pets I've intentionally gone out and hunted for a rare, and I've only bought one of the flawless stones thus far. Actually, I took the first pet I got when I was going to the achievie so most of my collection was grey pets when I started the dailies. Almost all of my rares came from doing the dailies and having the stones drop. I generally get at least one stone a day of some sort from the dailies and I have a good five or six still in my bags on one character. *shrug*

So, if you plan on doing those dailies, you'll get a whole ton of stones. Enough that it won't be a huge issue which you stone or not.